Advances in light wave technology have made optical fibers a very popular medium for large bandwidth communication applications. In particular, optical technology is being utilized more and more in broadband systems wherein communications between systems take place on high-speed optical channels. As this trend continues to gain more and more momentum, the need for efficient utilization of the precious real estate on circuit boards, racks/shelves, back planes, distribution cabinets, etc., is becoming ever increasingly important. In order to fulfill expectations across the industry, opto-electronic modules and optic fiber devices need to continue to be made miniaturized or compact, thereby taking full advantage of the maturity of micro- and opto-electronic technologies for generating, transporting, managing and delivering broadband services to ever increasing bandwidth demands of end users at increasingly lower costs. Thus, the industry has placed an emphasis on small optical connectors and optical harnesses, both simple and complex. However, miniaturizing and compacting is tempered by the requirements of transmission efficiency and organization.
With the miniaturization of optical modules and optical fiber devices, the management of optical fiber congestion has become an issue at optical interfaces and connection distribution points. One solution is the use of multi-fiber ribbon in which a plurality of optical fibers are organized and contained side by side in a plastic ribbon. It is known to interconnect these ribbon cables by supporting the fibers between two support members made of a monocrystaline material, such as silicon. In the support members are V-grooves formed utilizing photolithographic masking and etching techniques. The fibers are placed side by side in individual V-grooves of one support member and the other mating support member having corresponding V-grooves is placed over the fibers so as to bind or hold the fibers in a high precision spatial relationship between the mating V-grooves. The top and bottom support members sandwiching the multi-fiber ribbon are typically bonded together with a clamp or adhesive, forming a plug of a multi-fiber connector. Two mating plugs with the same fiber spacing may then be placed in an abutting relationship so that the ends of the fibers of the respective plugs are substantially co-axially aligned with one another, thereby forming a multi-fiber connection. If desired, such plugs can be stacked in order to increase the interconnection density. However, in addition to straight connections, in some applications it is desirable to re-route the optical fibers in a multi-fiber ribbon and reconfigure the optical fibers in a new multi-fiber ribbon combination.
Multi-fiber ribbons and connectors have numerous applications in optic communication systems. For instance, optical switches, optical power splitters/combiners, routers, etc., have several input and/or output ports arranged as linear arrays to which a plurality of fibers are to be coupled. Further, since optical fibers are attached somehow to launch optical signals into these devices and extract optical signals therefrom, splicing of arrays of fibers (i.e., a multi-fiber ribbon) to such devices can be achieved using multi-fiber connectors. Another possible application relates to an optical fan-out fabric where an array of fibers in a multi-fiber ribbon may be broken into simplex or duplex channels for distribution purposes, as is often desired.
Another multiple fiber application is the perfect shuffle cross-connect, where, for example, each of the multiple input ports, typically comprising more than one optical fiber, is in communication by one fiber with each of the multiple output ports, which also typically comprises more than one optical fiber. The perfect shuffle cross-connect provides for multi-channel optical transmissions, for example as in multi-wavelength transmissions, to be mixed in an orderly fashion. Currently, such connections are made by flexible optical circuits or complex jumpers. While complex jumpers take up space and create congestion, the flexible optical circuit is expensive to produce, often requiring highly skilled labor, such as a CAD designer to generate the original drawings of the circuit, and expensive processing machines such as those for fiber routing, lamination and connectorization equipment.
In summary, there continues to be strong market forces driving the development of fiber optic connection systems that take up less space and relieve congestion, while at the same time demanding that the increasing interconnection density requirements be satisfied. Further, such a connection system should be capable of being manufactured and assembled easily and inexpensively.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.